Déjà Vu
by LittleBlueNayru
Summary: Apocalyptic Majora's Mask oneshot.  How one ignorant inhabitant of the doomed land views the coming end.  Warnings: contains character death, the apocalypse, mild gore, complicated time-space theories, and some incoherency.


Disclaimer: I do not own Legend of Zelda.

Another rather sad/creepy/demented/BLAHWHATEVER rambling of mine, which I've been doing a lot as of late. This was partially inspired by Majora's Mask the game, partially by a fanfiction on this site called "Time Goes By" by Monopoly, and mostly by a random thought of mine:

Link goes back in time, but nobody else does. So they die, while Link gets another chance to fix things. Cue complicated cause-effect overlapping, metaphysics and time paradoxes and all that jazz I have no hope of understanding.

Also, this goes from somewhat comprehensible to erratic rambling, as it is told from Romani's point of view. As the story progresses, Romani starts deviating from topic to topic in sentences, so sorry if/when it causes you trouble reading.

I do not consider this explicit, as I do not describe in great detail the gore of the scene. However, if you don't like dying people, dying children, dying babies, or dying puppies, I suggest you turn back.

And S.R.H. Fade, if you are reading this, I still have _major_ adjective problems in this one. My B.

* * *

The moon's larger-than life, demented grin loomed ever closer above Clock Town, blotting out the majority of the night sky. Hollow eyes stared down at the great expanse of land below greedily, dreaming of consumption, total destruction.

It frightened the occupants of Romani Ranch, even from their relatively safe haven far away from its steady approach. Here in the heart of town, the hysteria and paranoia threatened to burst from electric current in the air to screaming, sobbing masses running without direction for shelter that did not exist.

Romani, for the thousandth time, wondered what had possessed her to follow Grasshopper down Milk Road into Clock Town just as the moon came down. She hung back, dodging ChuChus and Guays that Link passed over as he sprinted along the path. With each step, her misgivings grew. She felt...dusty. Utterly dry. _Baked._ Phantom sensations crawled all over her body, tormenting her endlessly. Already she had given up using her left arm, as it felt scorched and dead. The grass, so lush and soft, called out to her to lie in, and seeing as she was dying anyway, why not? The cows back on the Ranch had toppled on her right leg, and even now the scavenger birds had begun picking at her not-yet-dead body and it hurt and burned and she just wanted it to _end_...

Wait, no. That hadn't happened. It wouldn't happen. Her death would come in Clock Town, buried under moonrock and rubble. Was her inevitable doom driving her to mindless despair?

It wasn't inevitable! It wasn't! Grasshopper had _told_ her how he beat a Gargantuan Masked Fish down at Great Bay and he _promised_ he would stop the moon! But... Romani was _sure_ he had told her a different story, of him defeating a Masked Jungle Warrior in Woodfall, not a fish...and hadn't he already climbed the Tower he was just now mounting? Romani shut her eyes, clutching the sides of her head as she sank to the ground, breathing rapidly. Dreams and whims, phantasms and might-have-beens that happened but didn't assaulted her mind, mercilessly ripping reality apart and blurring the boundaries between thoughts and realms until no distinctions remained between them.

Link finally reached the top of the Tower he had already climbed but he had done that before and Romani wasn't even in Clock Town she was crushed by a fallen building on the Ranch and lying in the middle of Milk Road dying in a puddle of her own blood. The ignorant farm girl stared up at the top of the Clock Tower and the face that framed it so wickedly through thick tears. Link put his blue ocarina to his lips and began to play a song, and even in the din of the panic that was just beginning to break free, Romani heard his soft notes.

His song... it sounded like reassurance, of comfort in the knowledge that all things orderly lay bound perfectly within fine orchestral chords. It demanded sanctity, respect, worship; clearly an anthem of gods, a bestowing of divine power upon he who would play the sacred notes. Romani uttered a choked sob of relief; surely such a pure ode to the powers that be would call them down to save their loving subjects. Link would bring salvation, and all Termina would rejoice and praise the boy and the beautiful gods above.

He disappeared.

For one terrible second, Romani saw only Link and white, white; tiny giant clocks ticking backwards, and Link falling, falling; and for one eternal second, Romani wholly _understood_ that this wide gulf of oblivion would somehow deliver Link and only Link to safety, placing him gently on his feet at the base of the Tower on the dawn of the First Day. But the forces of nature stole this revelation from her one second later, leaving her with the terrible emptiness of split-second knowledge never to be regained, and hopeless fear, and mindless confusion.

Link was... _gone._

As if the townspeople felt his disappearance, the last straw snapped.

All Termina quaked with fear as the Moon's eyes glowed with the proclamation of total consumption. It moved closer now, quicker, with more purpose in its inevitable advance. A fearful cry rose from the top of the Tower; a child's insanity, that screamed of revenge without grudges, carnage without purpose, youth without innocence. It beckoned the moon to come down, all the way down, and then the people began to scream.

Mothers shrieked, children and babies cried, men shouted frantically, each one trying to raise their voice above the others' so to regain order as the world spun off its axis and spiraled wildly into oblivion. Stampings and footsteps filled Romani's vision as she huddled up against one of the sturdy brick buildings of town. Forget those family heirlooms, forget those family _members_, it's fight or flee and all you can do is run so run for your life because that's all you have left if you have anything at all. The madness of mindless molecules in a universe too large and adverse to understand slowly formed a steady stream, pouring towards the four gates and away from the center, repelled by certain doom, jostling each other in their mad bid to get away.

Several times, townspeople stepped on Romani, scraping her arms and legs and then pressing all their weight down as they bounded over her, trying to get away. The redheaded farm girl somehow managed to make her pain-filled way involuntarily from one side of the road to the other, dragging her body as people stepped over it. From her vantage point, she could see blood on the undersides of shoes. Her blood. Dogs' blood. They lay dying too (whimpering sadly as they weakly asked why their loving masters had left them here) because it was more important for the people to get away. Romani finally succumbed to tears and gave up control of her muscled when she spied a baby on the ground. Not even a week old. Dropped just like that; the mother's screams echoing horribly in the crowd as the waves of people dragged her baby from her. The unseeing infant began to sniffle in its bundle of blankets, then wail as the Moon crashed into the Clock Tower and sent huge bricks down, crushing its right arm and leg. Pain. Terror. Rumbling and crashing deafened the screams of the crowd as the Clock Tower's giant faces fell away, screeching in protest. With huge _thud_s, they landed on some houses, some shops, some people. Dust and brick and human insides filled the side-streets.

The gray rock grew red with heat as it plummeted into the town below it. One of the clock faces had caught Romani's left leg, and she stopped trying to move it, because she could feel the shards of bone squeal and shift and sting every time she tried, so it was better to stay still. A burning thatched roof pinned her in the dead center of the back, and electric, fiery pain consumed her brain. So many people still remained trapped in the town, and now the houses crushed them and the fires ate them and it wouldn't matter if they got away because if this is what the Moon did two stories about Clock Town then if it crashed (when it crashed) all Termina would die.

Romani stared up into the terrible eyes of the moon through fire and dust and brick and blood and screams so thick she swore she could see them because everything everywhere was screaming if its vocal cords weren't crushed like hers had been when she fell and landed just so on the corner of a brick so a huge gash silenced her across the throat and threatened to choke her. She wheezed pathetically, gurgling with blood and fear as she and Cremia watched the moon descend and spread fire from the half-safely of Romani Ranch even though Romani was here, alone and dying in Clock Town, and Cremia was probably huddled on her own in the barn with the frantic cows, sobbing, wondering where her little sister had gone.

_"Hey, Grasshopper, Romani never got the chance to thank you for helping me defeat Them. Although, sometimes Romani gets these strange dreams... like you hadn't come and They won and Romani couldn't remember anything. Romani guesses she didn't get enough sleep last night! ...Hey, do you think the Moon's going to fall?"_

_ "Probably. But I will stop it. No matter how long it takes. No matter how many times it takes. I promise."_

Memories and might-have-beens and dreams and realities and split-second realizations dimly remembered stared back from the moon's carnivorous gaze, lined with purple and orange and bright painted colors that laughed and laughed. It was ten feet away, and then the burning and crushing stone weight came down.

Romani's last thought before oblivion was that she'd done this before.

* * *

Eh, I suppose it wasn't terrible.

Basically, Link's gone back in time once or twice already, and while Romani dies in Clock Town in the "present", she has also died on the Ranch and on Milk Road before getting reincarnated to "start over" with Link, not remembering anything of it until the end. (She has also been abducted by Them at least once. I hate those oven-mitt-looking-like buggers.) For one second, she realizes what the Song of Time does, but it's like one of those instances where you have a huge breakthrough and then just as quickly it's gone. Don't you hate that? I do.

Oh, and that last little bit where Romani looks up at the moon? She's sort of "seeing" the mask in its gaze. Like an illusion-thing. Haha. Yeah.

The chain of events and the theories behind it do not describe how I actually view the game. Even though this viewpoint makes the gameplay make no sense. Nintendo logic for the win!


End file.
